Poison Ivy

It's been a while since we've posted anything, though it's not because of lack of time. In fact, we happen to have more free time than we've had in a VERY long time. And we happen to like it. Perhaps this 'hang out, walk to the park, take long naps (when Miya agrees to this), and watch movies' lifestyle is the reason we have found little to blog about. But we did happen to have a close encounter with poison ivy. It just happens to love our yard, and is growing everywhere we wish it woldn't. We discovered this after Miya spent 10 minutes pulling the leaves off of one of these plants (while mom sat idly by...hey, how was I to know?! I even remember counting the leaves on that plant and thought..."hmmm, what plants have three leaves?")

By some miracle, our neighbor showed up soon after this, asking to borrow something. He happened to mention that he'd killed some poison ivy along our fence, and offered to come check out in our yard to ID the plant. Good thing he did! I about had a heart attack after he pointed out the leaves Miya had ripped off of a group of plants under the deck. After that, it was off to the drugstore (after looking it up online and getting really freaked out from the pictures of oozing blisters and horrible rashes) for some neutralizing solution.

Amazingly, Miya did not have any symptoms. She either falls into the 40+% of people who do not react to the plant's oils, or our 6,324 prayers were answered with a miracle. Either way, we are SO grateful she did no have to suffer the consequences of her botany-challenged mother's ignorance.